Etudes technologiques de composants PDMS pour applications biomédicales : développement de capteurs souples de pression par transfert de film

摘要

This thesis focuses on the development of methodologies dedicated to the development of PDMS-based devices, which are required in medical applications. Two objective applications are considered in this work: i) the development of wearable flexible micro-sensors arrays for measuring pressure fields on human body and ii) the development of a reversible bonding technique of PDMS components dedicated to microfluidic chips. In this work, the mechanical properties of PDMS are determined using experiments and computations; they allow identifying the essential elements of the design of capacitive micro-sensors. The manufacturing process is reliable and reproducible, and different types of flexible pressure sensor have been fabricated by a film transfer process. Electromechanical characterizations show that the fabricated sensors are fully operational and suitable for the intended applications. Normal pressure sensors have a capacitance change ranging from 3 to 17% under a 10 N - 300 kPa - load, which is suitable for dental applications. Fabricated triaxial sensor arrays have a spatial resolution of 25 mm2, and a sensitivity of 4% under 3 N load in compression, and 1.4% / N under shear. These features are suitable for plantar pressure measurements required in gait analyses or for the detection of over-pressures. Besides, two different process methods for the reversible bonding of PDMS devices are developed. The microfluidic devices fabrcitated with these methods can be used within up to 5 “bonding & peeling off” cycles, and can be working at high microfluidic flows (500 µL / min, corresponding to a pressure of 148 kPa). The methodologies developed in these works open the way to the design and fabrication of PDMS-based devices suitable for demanding biomedical applications.